Water Lilies
by Valerie Phoenixfire
Summary: My first story using my female autopilot, Echo. Here's a view into her difficult life at the hands of her captain. One-shot. Contains physical abuse.


Water Lilies

The little autopilot's cerulean optic gazed longingly at the nebula outside the window. It was distant, she calculated, but it was so large that it may as well have been right next door. Her source files recognized it as the "water lily" nebula due to the shapes of the celestial dust clouds. Echo had never known the specifics of such things on Earth; she only knew that the water lily was a plant. Her optic widened and contracted as her systems received more information. Beautiful pinks and reds filled her sight slowly, more and more as the ship approached the formation, until her mesmerized stance was broken by a voice from the hallway.

She froze, spokes expanding and twitching once.

"Echo, you... you useless..."

The man was not drunk, a fact that perhaps horrified the autopilot more than anything. She understood her captain well by now. He was always like this. She contracted her spokes the best she could, as this was the best way to receive the treatment she knew was coming, and her optic contracted almost to nothing as she turned to face him.

He lumbered into the navigation room, looking more disheveled than usual. Was this really possible, Echo thought. Milliseconds seemed like minutes to her as she looked him over. His hair, oily and unkempt, was reflecting the room's lights all too well. His eyes were red from lack of sleep and, as Echo had grown to learn, rage. His clothes suggested in all forms that he was "Captain," as his crooked nametag stated. It was right. He was her captain. It was a fact she knew all too well, and a fact that made her existence entirely unfortunate.

"Echo!"

Loud. Her aural sensors shuddered.

"Echo! You're off... by three degrees, you know that? We're going to be lost... again..."

His voice was about as shaky as her frame was at the moment. She kept calculating. When was he going to strike?

"Gonna get us in another... asteroid field, you idiotic..."

For a moment, there was relief as he turned to look over holoscreens and control panels. Echo knew that he was mistaken; her navigation was not off by any means. He was the one telling her where to go. It was his judgment that was off, as it has been for the past five months. But she knew better. One does not question his or her captain, they told her in the beginning. And so she listened quietly and waited.

He turned around, an object held in his hand. It was time, Echo understood. Her optic dimmed, her spokes contracting more. Maybe he wouldn't be as harsh today.

"I told you _once_... I told you twice. We need to find that... stray ship. You keep getting us lost..."

Silence. Her processor strips rotated once, LEDs blinking gently and reflecting in the captain's hammer.

"_ECHO._ You're not listening, are you?"

The sickening crunch of metal upon metal was not something new, but today, she felt a little bit more numb to the strike. Maybe her electrical components were loosened enough to mask the pain, she thought as another blow came.

Thoughts were broken as the hammer slammed one of her processor strips. That was the pain she braced herself for, and yet it was more forceful than she expected. Her speaker struggled to emit her metallic screech as blasts of pain tore through her circuits. Nothing seemed to hurt more than a jammed processor strip, she recalled.

"Not speaking to me, are we? Do I have to remind you again who is captain on this ship?"

He really was going mad, being that he completely forgot that he broke the voice calibrator within her speaker system. Every time he hit her, Echo tried to speak. If only she could speak. Then maybe he would understand his mistakes.

"Tell me why you screwed up, Echo."

She warbled, attempting to make words out of metallic chirps and clicks. She tried so hard, but all she got was another blow right to the faceplate. That one stung. He added another dent to an already cracked section.

"_Tell me, Echo!_"

His hand gripped her wheel with the strength of what must have been ten men and he pulled her closer, forcing her along her track. For a moment, the blows stopped as red eyes met a single blue one. His breathing was vicious upon her surfaces, beads of sweat from frustration dappling his face. The autopilot did not understand hate, just like she didn't fully understand anger or abuse. He was her captain. What he did was right, wasn't it?

Out of the side of her optic, she noticed the nebula drifting into view even more. The captain's hands felt her slightest attempt to turn to watch. Regret flooded her as he righted her sharply.

"Look at _me,_ you idiot."

She trembled, a soft whine piercing the air.

"Oh, what's that, Echo? You want to see the pretty space clouds? That's what you want to do while we have a job to do?"

Echo tilted from side to side, trying her best to communicate a "negative." She wondered if that would work.

"Then maybe I should make it so you can't see it at all."

He let go of her. The hammer finally came down again, but not on her faceplate. Not did it hit her processor. Her handles and spokes were also spared this time, and she was glad of it for just a moment, as she did not want to lose another.

The nebula flashed brightly, as did her captain's eyes, followed by the entire room. Various system error codes flooded her visual display, flickering violently. Stabs of pain ripped through her in a way she had not quite experienced yet. It took her just a moment more to calculate that the strike was a direct hit to her optic.

She screeched again. Sparks glinted in the heated air as they burst from her overloaded speaker. The screech turned into a shaky whine and finally into a whimper as the cracks across her optic spread like a fractal. The captain's image flickered, yet remained. She wished it wouldn't remain.

With a snort, a laugh, and a few more expletives, he left. The door slammed.

The little autopilot's whimper softened into a muted cry as she touched her optic with her claw, assessing the damage. She made sure that silence filled the hallway before turning, painfully, once more to the window. The nebula was still there, blinking several times in her field of vision, which was continuing to process system errors.

Reds to pinks, whites to silvers amidst dark blue.

She didn't want to lose sight of those water lilies.


End file.
